MURSITPINAR, Turkey - Islamic State group fighters made a new bid to cut off the Syrian border town of Kobane from neighbouring Turkey Saturday as preparations gathered pace to deploy Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements.
The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq unveiled plans on Friday for up to 200 well-trained peshmerga to join Syrian Kurdish forces defending Kobane in the coming week.
Kurdish news agency Rudaw said the first contingent could head to Kobane as early as Sunday but there was no immediate confirmation of that timetable.
Peshmerga ministry spokesman Halgord Hekmat declined to specify what route the Iraqi Kurdish forces would take, but they are expected to travel overland through Turkey, which has said it will allow them transit.
Since Ankara conceded to US pressure to allow vetted reinforcements into Kobane to prevent IS winning the high-profile battle for the town, the militants have made repeated attempts to cut the border before any help can arrive. Before dawn on Saturday, IS fighters hit Kurdish forces defending the Syrian side of the border crossing with mortar and heavy machinegun fire, an AFP correspondent on the Turkish side reported. The heavy mortar fire around the Mursitpinar crossing prompted the Turkish army to order the evacuation of nearby hilltops from where the world’s press has been watching the battle for the town.
The Kurdish news agency said an initial peshmerga contingent of 150 was ready to leave for Kobane and would be headed by Sihad Barzani, brother of Iraqi Kurdish regional president Massoud Barzani and head of its artillery brigade. It cited peshmerga officials as saying that an additional 1,000 Iraqi Kurdish fighters would follow.
The main Syrian Kurdish fighting force in Kobane has close links with the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Ankara has been adamant that no heavy weaponry should fall into its hands.
Iraqi government forces have come under renewed attack by IS south of Baghdad, with troops battling on Saturday to secure the route used by hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims headed for Najaf and Karbala.
Eight soldiers were killed in the assault by IS militants which began in the Jurf al-Sakhr area on Friday, officers said. This year’s march to Karbala is set to be more dangerous than most, with militants from IS, which has overrun large swathes of Iraq, holding territory along the way.
“Securing Jurf al-Sakhr is securing Karbala and the south completely, as the gateway to the south begins from Jurf al-Sakhr,” Karbala governor Aqil al-Turaihi told journalists during a visit to the area.
Securing Jurf al-Sakhr would also better position Iraqi forces to strike at militants in nearby Anbar province, where they have suffered a string of setbacks, prompting warnings that the entire province could fall.
Meanwhile, Kurdish forces retook the northern Iraqi town of Zumar and several nearby villages from Islamic State early on Saturday after heavy coalition air strikes against the Islamist insurgents, security sources said.
A Kurdish intelligence officer in Zumar said peshmerga forces had advanced from five directions in the early morning and encountered fierce resistance, but ultimately prevailed. A spokesman for the peshmerga ministry also said Zumar was now in Kurdish hands.
Zumar was one of the first Kurdish-controlled towns to be overrun in August by Islamic State militants who went on to threaten the autonomous region’s capital, prompting air strikes by the United States - a campaign since joined by Britain and France.
Meanwhile, Sultan Muslim, a Syrian Kurd, had no doubt what to name her seventh child when he was born, safely in Turkey, after a harrowing month-long flight from her home in Kobane: Obama.
Desperate to flee the flashpoint Syrian border town, the heavily pregnant mother, her husband and six other children made it across the frontier just in time for the boy’s arrival.
Islamic State (IS) militants, accused of widespread atrocities, seized control of the strategic locality and US-led bombing raids launched in the last few weeks have tried to stop their advance.
“I gave my son this name from my heart. I will never change this name,” the shy 35-year-old said in a refugee camp in Suruc, just inside Turkey.
“He dispatched planes, aid for us. Because of his help maybe we will get rid of this cruelty and get back to our homes,” she said, cradling her three-day-old son.